BETTS HOUSE BICENTENNIAL EXHIBIT

IV. A New Century

The 1925 City Plan

Cincinnati’s 1925 City Plan, the first of its kind in the nation, was an attempt to bring order to urban chaos. To shape growth, the plan proposed new zoning regulations and specific solutions to traffic snarls, including new thoroughfares through city neighborhoods, new traffic patterns through downtown and more public transit.

The plan showed a cluster of civic institutions and squares in the vicinity of Central Parkway, stretching from City Hall to Music Hall, and wide boulevards to a redesigned Lincoln Park and along Court Street.

Lincoln Park

In step with the City Beautiful movement at the turn of the 20th century, Cincinnati initiated a plan for an improved citywide park system. Consulting landscape architect George E. Kessler laid out a grand scheme of hilltop parks and parkways in 1907. Kessler also 1912 digital map, prepared by Steven Muzik, courtesy of the Community Design Center, University of Cincinnati. acknowledged the need for relief in the districts of great- est congestion in the basin. By 1900, most middle-income families had left the West 1925 City Plan, in Stradling, David. Cincinnati, From River City to Highway End. New immigrants, often impoverished and from Like Washington and Lytle Parks, Lincoln Park, at Metropolis, The Making of America Series. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, backgrounds that ill-prepared them for life in a crowded Freeman Avenue at Hopkins Street (now just west of I- 2003. urban setting, further contributed to congestion. While a 75 in the approach to Union Terminal), was one of few working-class families remained, the area was quickly Cincinnati’s earliest parks, dating from ca. 1860. The evolving into the largest and poorest slum in the city. only park in the entire West End, it was a picturesque landscape with a lake, wading book, public baths, a ball During World War I, the black community in the West field and tennis courts. End grew considerably. The wartime shortage of labor encouraged blacks to move to Northern cities to take factory jobs. The West End, with plenty of cheap hous- ing, became home to large numbers of these migrants. By 1925, almost 80% of the city's 38,000 blacks lived here, while most residents of other ethnic backgrounds, including East European Jews, had moved out.

As population density increased and housing deteriorat- ed, conditions in the area worsened. Buildings were crowded onto lots as narrow as sixteen feet; many homes were literally falling down. By one account, some single- family dwellings housed as many as a dozen families. In most places 80% of the land was built over. Often the only open spaces were the streets.

1928 Aerial photograph, courtesy of Nancy Gulick. After the Cincinnati Hospital relocated to Corryville in 1915, its former Nevertheless, the black community in the West End had Lincoln Park, courtesy of Cincinnati Historical Society Library site on 12th Street was cleared. a strong sense of identity developed and expressed through its institutions. There was a multitude of According to The Bicentennial Guide to Greater Cincinnati, churches, some located in the ornate buildings of earlier, “By 1900, Lincoln Park was one of the most heavily used more affluent Christian and Jewish congregations, and in the city. In winter, as many as 5,000 people skated on some in storefronts. the frozen pond, and during the summer an estimated 1500 tenement dwellers slept there each night to escape Nor were all the residents of the West End poor. The the hot, stagnant air of their homes. But by the 1920s, neighborhood was home to numerous black tradesmen, the area had become a vast slum, and to clear the park entrepreneurs, and professionals. The Cotton Club, and nearby buildings seemed a civic improvement.” modeled on its Harlem namesake, brought jazz greats Atlas of the City of Cincinnati. New York: Sanborn Map Co., 1922, vol. 1, pl. 8, courtesy of Public Library of and other celebrities to Cincinnati in the 1920s and Cincinnati and Hamilton County. 1930s. What Can You Learn from a Map?

The shift in demographics and land uses around the Crosley Field Betts House in the early 20th century can be seen by comparing maps from different periods. The 1922 map From 1912 to 1970 Crosley Field, at 1200 Findlay Street shows there was still an empty lot on the west side of the and Western Avenue, was the home of the Cincinnati Betts House. Reds. Originally known as Redland Field, it was renamed Crosley Field in 1934 when the Reds were owned by The 1904 map updated in 1910 and 1930 updates shows Cincinnati business man and inventor Powel Crosley, Jr. that a Jewish synagogue had moved into 422 Clark Street Baseball devotees count the first night game in 1935 as and built an addition on the vacant lot by 1930. one of the most notable events to take place in this ball Insurance Maps of Cincinnati, Ohio. New York: park. The 1934 map, updated in 1947, shows the synagogue Sanborn Map Co., 1904 (updated 1910, 1930), vol. 1, pl. 63, courtesy of Public Library of Cincinnati and had become the “New St. Paul AME Church (Colored).” Hamilton County. By the late 1930s, both the city and the club were dissat- The 1936-37 Williams Cincinnati Directory confirms isfied with the old stadium. The West End was by then a the church was in place by then. Today this building is a slum, and driving and parking there were difficult. The private residence. 1948 Metropolitan Master Plan called for a multi-sports stadium to be built on the riverfront just east of the Crosley Field, in Grace, Kevin and Tom White, Images of America, Cincinnati Revealed: A Photographic Heritage of the Suspension Bridge. Twenty years later, ground was bro- Queen City. Chicago: Arcadia Publishing, 2002. ken for Riverfront Stadium and on June 24, 1970, the last game was played at Crosley Field.

Insurance Maps of Cincinnati, Ohio. New York: Sanborn Map Co., 1934 (updated 1947, 1951, 1957, 1961), vol. 1, pl. 64, courtesy of Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

Lincoln Park, courtesy of Cincinnati Historical Society Library.